Comforting Thorin
by Borys68
Summary: This is the night after BofA. Heavily wounded Thorin receives care and comfort from an unexpected attendant. Fate had separated them many years ago - Thorin being forced to leave for the West alone - yet Fate made their paths cross again during the Battle of the Five Armies. Will the tenderness and love shown by the brown maned and blue eyed friend help him survive the night?
1. Nuzzle me tender, nuzzle me sweet

Springtail tried to pass on as much of his body heat to the ruined body of his two legged friend as possible. He also licked off the sweat of the dwarf's brow, the only visible part of his body without some sort of fur on it. As much as Dain was his Master the dwarf named Thorin – a distant littermate of his master's – was his personal friend.

The merciless and unstoppable killing beast had known this Thorin since he had been a piglet on wobbly legs and the dwarf had hidden him under his beard and allowed him to snuggle.

This is because Springtail had a mysterious past – his mother, Sowfrieda – had run off to the woods and returned pregnant a year later. She had never squealed, meh, given even half an oink as to who had sired her litter. The labour was difficult and long and Oin and Gandalf – both conveniently visiting the Iron Hills at that time – had massaged Sowfrieda's belly and poured draughts down her snout. Alas, not only did she not survive labour, Springtail was the only piglet to leave her birthing canal capable of breathing. Thus the orphaned mite was raised by hand by the Durin Royal Family. He bore a light brown blond mane, different from all the other battle swine of Iron Hills and had blue eyes, another unique feature. Those orbs usually were light blue and full of prankish mirth, but took upon a grim greyish tinge with hints of bloodlust before battle. When Springtail pondered deeper issues his spheres took upon an even darker hue, said to mirror that of Kheled-zâram.

Incapable of taking him West, where prejudice against his kind was strong, particularly amongst the Elves, Thorin impressed upon his Royal Cousin the need of proper care and grooming, of warm slops at least once a day and fresh straw every second day. And merciless retribution if Dain failed in this. Oin in turn had read the portents and prophesised that Dain's Day of Elevation would be from a pig's back.

His keen hearing heard what he had been dreading to hear – no more rasping breath, no more light and irregular heartbeat. Springtail raised his powerful muzzle to the uncaring stars and squealed in anguish. His friend, the two legs called Thorin, had just gone to the Great Pigsty of the Two Legs.


	2. To oink or not to oink, this is the

AN:

It was to be a one shot but as Chiara Cadrich and Certh asked about the the sire ...

* * *

><p>Springtail closed Thorin's eyes with his front trotter, gave him a slurp of farewell and – with his fell tusk – dragged the blanket over the dwarf's face. He then took out his angst and anguish outside, into the colourless grey of a November dawn.<p>

He heard sounds of further anguish from his right. The sow-elf Tauriel was lamenting the loss of her hog-dwarf Kili. He trotted towards her – two wallowing in angst was better than one. The sow-elf first wanted to throw a rock at him but her Sylvan _fea_, attuned to the subtle currents of emotions of creatures around her, revealed Springtail to be another soul in need of solace. They embraced and he let her pour out all her tears and snot over him, while he oinked at her comfortingly. He pitied her bleak future – all the sow-elf had to look towards to was a cold, empty box, without the warmth of some swine to keep her warm, to scratch where she could not reach, to give her strong sons and graceful daughters. Unless – Springtail eyed the hog-elf spying on them from the rocks above – she would let herself be covered by _him_. The skinny blond hog-elf looked eager enough. At long while the sow-elf cried herself out and patted him on his broad, muscular back, the envy of other warhogs of the Iron Hills.

Uncharacteristically not feeling hunger Springtail trotted out into the battlefield. Nevertheless he went to examine the mounds of the fallen in the areas which saw the most vicious fighting. Maybe he would gobble some conveniently sized body part? He was pig enough not to be fussy about the race of donor, although he'd prefer it not to be dwarf. Springtail had his standards.

The mighty warhog of the Iron Hill began to examine his nemesis of the day before, the White Warg of Gundabad. Suddenly he froze – he knew the outline of the missing part of the Evil! Creature's ear like the back of his trotters! The missing part of that ear was nailed to the wall above his basket in the Royal Palace in the Iron Hills from the age he was old enough to understand that this was not a chew-toy! Dain Ironfoot had told him, while still a piglet on his knee, that his mother had come back wounded and gravid, with a warg's ear in her snout.

So this was sire?! He had KILLED his sire?! Woe is me, what angst! And he was a MONGREL!

The Orc Gorer galloped away into the mist to find a secluded spot for introspection. His mongrelness first – his body proportions indeed were a bit off and his omnivouresness had stronger cravings for meat than most. His sense of smell was inferior to that of other hogs, making him the laughing stock among the young sows and gilts when he invariably finished last in "find the truffle" contests. They hid their snouts behind their trotters and giggled, looking at him from the corner of their eyes. The pain! The pain!

Now, the issue of killing his father. Was there some evil streak running in his blood, inherent to his bloodline? As patricide was Evil!, did this make him an Bad!Pig? But as his sire was trying to kill _him_, it was self defence, right? His orbs dark with the dark broodings within, Springtail found a puddle and wallowed in the mud. He had heard sow-dwarfs speak among themselves that taking a bath helped them "get in touch with their emotions". The distraught and bereaved warhog hoped that this would work for him too, that swine and sow were not _that_ different.


	3. Not the way Eru intended

The two noble steeds, Elk and Hog, conversed amiably. The majestic Horny Horn droned on:

"No idea why I'm still doing this. This "fight off challengers to my harem" thingy, I mean. No fidelity among the cows of today at all. Every mating season they spot some young elk-flesh and are ready to dump me, their Protector of so many years, and chase after some smoother flank or more furry tail tip. Why do I even care to bother? Must be them hormones or summping, as brains it ain't ... "

Springtail burped to show his interst in the story, as was the way amongst the swine, and nodded.

"Aye. Wimmin. They pounce you, take what they want from you, and all in such a haste that you don't even get to ask their name. And what's a pig to do later - shout at any vaguely familiar looking sow - "hey you, are those piglets mine?". Hard to be a conscientious sire in times of such moral decadence ..."


End file.
